What It’s Like to Hear the Same Piece of Music for 19 Hours

The hallucinations began around 4 a.m. — nine hours and not even halfway through Erik Satie’s “Vexations,” the devilishly beguiling piece that, depending on whom you ask, is either a step toward Zen enlightenment or the longest joke in music history.

I was at the Guggenheim Museum for a marathon performance of “Vexations” at the Peter B. Lewis Theater, a subterranean space with no cell service or views of the outside world. The seats weren’t comfortable enough for sleeping, and the chilly temperature left me torturously alert for the entire concert, which began at 7 p.m. on Tuesday and ended around 1:30 p.m. the following day.